Call me smug if you like - go on be my guest - but this week I intend to show off and no apologies.

You see, although my head may be big, the rest of me is definitely smaller that it was two months ago.

While the rest of the country is getting fatter and fatter (a third of us are obese according to reports in last week's papers), yours truly is currently celebrating the loss of 16lbs or whatever that is in kilos.

Think of that in terms of potatoes or bags of sugar and you can see why I'm feeling chuffed. Even my feet are shrinking and have dropped a size!

But it's not been easy. In fact it's taken weeks of denial, discipline and sheer hard graft to shift the blubber, weeks of suppressing a wilful sweet tooth, banning butter and eating child-sized portions off child-sized plates.

Since December not one doughnut or Danish pastry has passed my lips, biscuits belong to another lifetime and cheesecake . . . what's cheesecake?

You can forget all those fad diets - and I admit I've tried most of them - which involve gallons of cabbage soup, meals in a milkshake or drinking goats' urine every Thursday.

What it takes to shift that all too solid flesh is will-power, a notebook and the no-nonsense nurse who runs what I call the Fat Clinic at my GP's surgery.

Unfortunately, where I differ from a lot of women is that instead of imagining I'm actually fatter than I really am, I tend to see myself as much slimmer - even when I have three chins and a backside you could use as a sea defence.

But I couldn't kid nurse. She didn't miss a trick. "I want both feet on the scales, Mrs Leigh, don't try and balance on one foot - and taking your earrings off won't make any difference," she said.

Thus I learnt the cruel truth. I had to lose three stones in weight and I was going to do it with weekly weigh-ins - and by keeping a Food Diary.

Now, a Food Diary can be every bit as intimate as the Dear Diary confessions of a lovesick teenager, recording every moment of giddy weakness.

"February 18: I know I shouldn't but today I finally gave in to temptation.

It's been two weeks without the delightful taste of pastry against my lips. I could resist no longer. I had half a pork pie. I know I'll have to live with the consequences but it was worth it just this once . . ."

Then, of course, there's exercise. Some people recommend sex, which isn't much fun if you're watching your wobbles - but really don't want anyone else to watch them too.

So I walk, really walk, not just one of those wimpish 20-minute strolls three times a week that the slimming magazines recommend.

Last week I walked from Brighton to Portslade and back, twice. Tomorrow I plan to hoof it to Saltdean. And do you know, I never, ever, see anyone else walking - or strolling. Couch potatoes where art thou?

By July I reckon I'll finally have escaped my fat cocoon. Another 28lbs (or whatever that is in kilos) gone and I'll be happy.

Until then, as they say, it's not over till the fat lady slims.